The Prosperity Gospel
L. Ron Hubbard (Founder of Scientology) once said "Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."
Word of Faith – a non biblical teaching that uses God as a cosmic dispenser of goodies. The photo on the left is a Joy Meyer Family Compound by Rober Cohen of the St. Louis Dispatch. The prosperity gospel at its best.
One thing that is notable with the prosperity gospel is that the believer of the prosperity gospel is taught to use God whereas the truth of the bible teaches that God uses the believer. The Holy Spirit, as taught in the scriptures, teaches that He enables the person to do God’s will whereas the prosperity gospel teaches that the Holy Spirit is a power that can be put to use for whatever the person will with the requisite amount of faith. God becomes the cosmic candy dispenser. Instead of depositing a quarter into the candy machine, the prosperity believer deposits faith into the cosmic candy machine and prosperity is dispensed.
Those that believe that Christians can ‘claim’ a promise, I would like give verses that the word “claim” is used in the New Testament.
- Rom 3:8 And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), “Let us do evil that good may come”? Their condemnation is just.
- 1Ti 2:10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness.
The Greek word that is used is “epaggello” which is defined by Strong’s as “to announce upon (reflexively), that is, (by implication) to engage to do something, to assert something respecting oneself: – profess, (make) promise.”
There is no instance in the bible where believers claimed promises. The word claim, as used by the prosperity believers, does not use the word as defined biblically for it would not make sense. They are using it not in the sense as in the bible which is as “a deponent verb meaning basically to announce oneself, offer oneself for a responsibility or service.”
Claim, as used by the prosperity people, use it in the modern definition which is “To call for; to ask or seek to obtain, by virtue of authority, right or supposed right; to challenge as a right; to demand as due; as, to claim a debt; to claim obedience, or respect. To have a right or title to; as, the heir claims the estate by descent; he claims a promise.”
A claim is a demand.
I would like to share a couple of stories from the prosperity movement.
A family had a child who was a type 1 diabetic. They claimed a healing for their young child and stood on the promise that their child would be healed. They tossed out the child’s life saving insulin as to keep the insulin would demonstrate that they lacked faith. They prayed over their child, folks from their church would come over and pray over the child. They performed demon removals. Yet the child remained diabetic and slowly got sicker while they continued to diligently pray and claim a healing. Eventually, the child slipped into a diabetic coma. Yet, the parents chose to believe and claim a healing for their child and refrained from giving him the life saving insulin. The child died and the parents were prosecuted and put in prison where they belong.
Another example is a story from someone that witnessed the following.
A young girl was fell off her bike and hit her head on the sidewalk. Her parents were prosperity believers. While the child was in the hospital, she was prayed over not only by her parents but by many in the parent’s church, including the pastor of that church. Meanwhile a couple of days later, in an unrelated incident, a biker sitting on his motorcycle at a stoplight, was hit by a bus and ended up in a hospital with many, many broken bones. It was a different hospital than the child. There was no link between the two, they were simply two human beings that suffered a tragedy.
Two weeks later, the child succumbs to her injuries and dies. Meanwhile, the man who was hit by a bus, a biker who had no relationship to the Lord, had no one praying for him, eventually recovers and walks out of the hospital.
The outcome of this is that the parents were told that they lacked faith and because of the lack of faith, their child died. In fact, one person stated “If her family knew their Bible, their little girl would never have gotten into that situation in the first place.”
God, the cosmic candy dispenser. If you desire a gumball and see a gumball machine, you place your quarter in the gumball machine and a gumball is dispensed. If you put in less than a quarter, you will not receive the desired gumball. God, as the cosmic candy dispenser, does not take quarters. He takes faith. If you deposit the requisite amount of faith, He dispenses the desired request. If not enough faith is deposited, like the gumball, nothing is dispensed.
I’ve often wondered what is taught about the faith, or lack of faith of Paul, David and Moses who God denied their requested petitions.
“But the LORD was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me; and the LORD said to me, ‘Enough! Speak to Me no more of this matter. (Deu 3:26 NASB)
David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground. The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them. Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!” (2Sa 12:16-18 NASB)
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2Co 12:8-9 NASB)
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I find it interesting that those who hold to a prosperity gospel seldom talk about the fact that Jesus died with his executioners gambling for the only thing he owned. The Apostles and the early Christians didn’t exactly reap a financial harvest either. I tend to think their faith was certainly strong enough.
You’re correct. Actually, I wrote this post in response to another’s blog who titled her blog “create your tomorrow” or something like that. She posted a slew of scriptures that cited promises that Christians can claim. I commented on her blog yesterday but she has not approved my comment and I suspect she will not. My opinion is that this prosperity teaching is one of the most damaging and misleading teachings that is out there.
I agree. It reduces God to nothing more than a cosmic ATM. It also crushes the faith of those whose “claims” don’t come to pass.
I like the ‘cosmic ATM’ better than my gumball analogy. I used that because I recall as a little girl, I did not have the right amount of money and I really wanted a gumball so I put in the wrong amount, hoping against hope, that the machine would still give me the gumball. Of course, it did not and I could not understand at that young age how the machine was able to determine what was correct amount and what was not. What I find incredibly insedious about the word of faith movement is if someone does not prosper, their petition is not granted, they are blamed for having a lack of faith which is exactly what happened to the parents of that little girl who died from the biking accident. Without naming names, a very well known prosperity teacher found out she had breast cancer. Instead of ‘claiming her healing’ as she has taught countless others to do, she sought medical treatment.
Tishrei,
I’m sure there are thousands of stories of hearthache great and small that have their origin in the filthy lies of the prosperity teachers. Nothing we do or say happens in a vaccuum, and when people believe and depend on it, well, we better be right.
In Christ,
Kent
What I try and do (though I am sure I fail at times) is make a distinction between what I believe is truth and what is my opinion or what I think. In other words, I will say “I think this is what God is saying” as opposed to “This IS what God is saying.”
BLT
I think it is true that some take “prosperity preaching” too far. But I don’t think that our Lord wishes us to live in poverty either. If one thinks that you have to be poor to be a Christian, then I ask you, how do you define “poor”. If you live almost anywhere in the US, then you are probably considered wealthy by over 50% of the worlds inhabitants.
When God spoke to Moses, he said “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy”. Though he wasn’t necessarily speaking about prosperity, I believe that some Christians will prosper while others may not. I don’t think this means that the prosperous Christians are living in sin as I can find no scripture that describes wealth as sin, but rather, the “love of wealth” is the sin.
Hopefully no one believes that to be a Christian, one needs to be poor. That’s not what the scriptures teach. God’s blessings rain on the just and the unjust. However, the prosperity gospel teaches that one will prosper in finances and in health and that’s just not true. Some Christians are wealthy, some are poor but the same is true as to the non Christian. Some are wealthy and healthy and some are not.
The whole of the Gospel is to bring sinners to Himself and in doing so, it glorifies God. What He has promised is take care of our needs.
Thanks for stopping by.